Step 1: Speak to them

Before you do anything else you should speak to your employees. Ask them what they enjoy about their role and perhaps more importantly, what they don’t. Ask for their opinion – what do they think can be done differently? You could try this face-to-face but you might find they are more honest via an anonymous feedback form. You might hear something you don’t want to but if you don’t know what the issues are, how can you resolve them? It’s important to show your staff that their feedback has been taken on board and how you plan to resolve issues. If you speak to them and then ignore their concerns, the situation will only get worse.

Step 2: Provide training

Your employees want to feel like they’re progressing and growing in their role.

If they aren’t, they’ll look elsewhere and you could potentially lose some of your very best talents. The best way to do this is by offering training; people development coaching will help them grow as a person – in terms of confidence, for example. But, you could look into more specific training courses – that are directly related to the role that they do. This will benefit both them and the company as they learn new skills and perfect current ones.

Step 3: Offer incentives

No matter how much we enjoy our jobs one of the main reasons we’re there is to ensure we can pay the bills - which is why pay incentives are bound to make your employees happy. This could be a yearly bonus if company targets are met or a pay rise when they have achieved a set of specific goals. This doesn’t only need to be monetary, however. It could be perks such as flexible hours, free breakfast, early finish on a Friday and so on.

Step 4: Make changes to the working environment

We spend the majority of our day at work which is why the environment can affect mood and therefore happiness. This might be as simple as playing music in the office – did you know that this is a mood enhancer and can actually make you more productive? You could add a ping pong or football table – giving employees the opportunity to not only take a break from the desk (which will also improve productivity) but bond with colleagues. Create a ‘cool’ office and you’ll be inundated with applications.

Step 5: Organise social events

Encouraging your employees to meet up outside the 9 to 5 will create a sense of workplace community as they bond and form friendships. This doesn’t have to be organised team building activities that everyone dreads and attends reluctantly. It could simply be drinks at the pub on a Friday night or a seasonal party.

You might find that the changes you need to make are relatively small. These won’t come at a huge loss to the business in terms of finance or productivity. In fact, in the long run it should be incredibly beneficial in both aspects.